Smoking is a lifesaver (well sort-of)!

Disclaimer: I didn't create Saiyuki (duh). I can't even speak, read or write Japanese...

AN: My first fanfic! Please forgive me for any mistakes...I'm not perfect! And besides, Chinese is my first language, English is my second, Spanish is my third, so don't expect my Japanese to be that good...haha! Learned a bit from reading other fanfics, watching Japanese anime (with Chinese subtitles, thank goodness), looking at websites...etc. Liked Saiyuki so much that I read the entire novel "Journey to the West" by Wu Cheng'en (though the characters were...um...extremely different! I also cheated a bit by skipping the poems...lol). Things in square brackets [] are little interruptions by me. Anyway, on with the story!

THE DESERT

"Ahhhhhhh...Sanzooooo...harahetta..." you-know-who wailed to the monk, who grunted and continued to smoke.

"Bakasaru, you're always hungry. Hey, I've got an idea – let me carve your stomach out with my shakujo! Then you'll never go hungry again!" Gojyo grinned, making his scythe-like weapon appear in his hand.

"NANI?! Baka ero kappa! I'd rather starve to death instead of following any of your perverted ideas!"

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING BAKA, WHEN YOU'RE THE DUMBEST BAKASARU I'VE EVER MET IN MY ENTIRE LIFE?!"

"OH YEAH?! AT LEAST I'M NOT AN ERO KAPPA LIKE YOU!"

"AT LEAST I'M NOT A BAKASARU LIKE YOU!"

"I MAY BE A BAKASARU BUT YOU'RE AN ERO KAPPA!"

"BAKASARU!"

"ERO KAPPA!"

"BAKASARU!"

"ERO –"

"URUSEI!" The last thing Goku and Gojyo saw was the blinding white flash of the harisen crashing down on their heads.

"Itai..." Gojyo and Goku rubbed their heads, glaring at each other. Goku looked up into the bright blue sky and sighed loudly.

"Eh? What are you doing bakasaru? Hoping for food to fall out of heaven?!" Gojyo laughed. Goku glared at him with his golden eyes, but didn't fight back and decided to look up towards the sky again.

"Ah...Sanzo..." Goku said after a while.

"..."

"Is there a god in heaven who gives food to hungry people?" Goku asked, eyes shining.

-_-# *click*

"You wanna know? Go find out for yourself when you're dead and your soul goes to heaven...that is, if you don't go to hell. Anyway, even if there is a 'food god' that god won't give any food to you because you're not a person, you're a saru!" Gojyo snickered at Sanzo's comment, only to find the shoureiju pointing at him.

"^_^; Maa, maa...don't fight, we're only a few miles from the next town and we have to arrive there with all of us alive," Hakkai said, trying to calm everyone down.

"Humph." Sanzo turned around and continued to smoke, trying to relax in the short-lived silence that followed after every time he told Gojyo and Goku to shut up. The smoke he exhaled was inhaled by the unlucky saru sitting right behind him who gagged at the smell.

"*Cough cough* Ahhhh...Sanzooo...*cough* How can you breathe in such disgusting *cough* smelling smoke everyday?! And why do you smoke? I thought *cough* smoking was bad for *cough cough* people's health, especially mine *cough COUGH*."

Gojyo laughed and said, "Yea, Mr. Holiness, I thought that smoking was against the rules in Buddhism."

"'Ch. As if I care." Suddenly, the jeep screeched to a halt, throwing the back seat passengers forward.

"Ahh...Hakkai...why did we stop?!" Goku asked. Hakkai smiled an apology and pointed to the hundreds of demons in front of them, all brandishing a weapon.

"Oi! Sanzo-ikkou! Prepare to meet your doom..." a youkai shouted.

"Hey, Goku, here's another chance to find out about that food god you were talking about," Gojyo shouted, grabbing his shakujo.

"Shut up and fight ero kappa!" Goku shouted back and prepared to fight.

"Ahh, Sanzo, Gojyo, Hakkai...this is sooo boring...harahetta..." Goku moaned, killing his 174th demon with his Nyoibou [this doesn't help the youkai population...^^].

"'Ch. Bakasaru, if you're so hungry go eat the youkai you just killed." Sanzo replied, reloading his gun and dodging the attacking demons at the same time.

"Ah, but it's covered in blood and sweat!" Goku protested, killing his 175th demon.

"Yare yare desune...we need a more interesting hobby..." Hakkai sighed, summoning another ki-ball.

"Ha, you call this a hobby?" Gojyo chuckled, swirling his shakujo around a few demons who screamed and disintegrated as the blade cut into them. Hakkai smiled.

"Well, we seem to be doing this around 5 out of every 7 days, and we – " Hakkai's sentence was cut short by a sound of someone cackling evilly, as darkness suddenly appeared and swirled around Sanzo. The sky turned black; all the while the laughing continued to grow louder as the darkness engulfed Sanzo.

"SANZOOOOOOO!" Goku screamed as the darkness and the cackling slowly faded away into the background, leaving Goku, Hakkai and Gojyo behind surrounded with the dead bodies of the youkai they killed...

Sanzo slowly regained consciousness, and looked at his surroundings. It was all dark except for one dim light above him, casting his shadow onto the floor below. His sutra and gun were gone, and he was hanging on the walls, immobilised.

"Damn. Where on earth am I?"

The cackling of a female youkai suddenly interrupted Sanzo's thoughts, and as Sanzo stared in the darkness, the youkai emerged, licking her blood red lips. She had long brown hair and wore a black dress that contrasted against her pale skin, and made Sanzo think,

"I wonder what that ero kappa would give to trade places with me..." Somewhere, where Goku, Hakkai and Gojyo were worrying about Sanzo (or not), Gojyo sneezed.

The monk rolled his eyes.

"Don't tell me that you're stupid enough to believe in that stupid myth that whoever eats my flesh lives forever?" The youkai stopped advancing and said sweetly,

"Tsk tsk, manners, Genjo Sanzo. I'm not stupid. You're the one who's stupid enough to get caught by me. By the way, it's not a myth, and I will prove it to you [that means she's going to eat Sanzo alive?! Waaa?! ^_^;]! And without your gun or your sutra you are powerless against me! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" her laugh echoed around the strange place. Sanzo just snickered, violet eyes glinting.

"Oh, really? Well, I've got one more weapon to show you..." The demon stopped her ridiculous laughter and eyed the monk suspiciously.

"Oh? And what is that?"

"'Ch. Come closer."

"..." O.o The demon hesitated, then inched forward, thinking,

"Well he can't move at all (apart from his mouth), so he can't do anything to me..." [that's what she thinks...hee, hee].

"Closer." The female youkai went even closer to Sanzo until their faces were so close she tried hard not to eat him, face first. Sanzo smirked, and breathed out into her face. Silence.

"WHAT THE %*&^ $*&^ #?! ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO, I'M DYINNNNNGGGGGGGGG!" The female youkai's eyes widened as she clutched her throat, gagging and staggering away from Sanzo. "AHHHHHHHHHH! The smell...THE SMELL! WHAT ON EARTH IS THAT SMELL?! I'd rather DIE than to eat that disgusting monk's flesh and live forever!" She ran away hysterically and blindly, not aware that she was heading straight off the edge of a cliff [erm, don't ask me how on earth that cliff appeared in front of her...^_^;; maybe another of Sanzo's 'powers'?!]. She fell off screaming and died [hey, she got her wish!]. The chains she had created around Sanzo's wrists and ankles disappeared, and he landed onto the ground.

"'Ch. Stupid youkai..." Sanzo looked around, found his gun and sutra, and walked away from the place she had confined him in (which also disappeared when she died).

BACK TOGETHER

"Oi! Sanzo!" Gojyo was the first to spot the monk walking towards them. Goku and Hakkai turned around and saw Sanzo as well and all ran up to him.

"SANZOOOOOOOOOOO! I was sooooo worried!" Goku cried, leaping on top of Sanzo.

*THWACK*

Before Goku could touch him, Sanzo had whipped out the harisen and hit him.

"Don't touch me bakasaru," Sanzo retorted, glaring at him.

"Itai..." Goku held his head, face creased in pain.

"Hahaha, baaaaaka!" Gojyo teased Goku.

"Humph. Shut up ero kappa. Hey, what exactly are you, an ero kappa, an ero gokiburi or an ero sheep?!" Goku sniggered. Hakkai couldn't stop himself from chuckling and said,

"Hey...Goku's right...you did sound like a sheep, Gojyo, saying 'baaaaaaka'!" Gojyo glared at them and yelled,

"Urusei! I was just stressing how stupid Goku is..." However, Goku and Hakkai were both laughing too hard to listen to Gojyo. Sanzo stared angrily at them.

"Oi! We wasted too much time here! Let's go, unless you all wanna die here..." Sanzo whipped out his gun.

^_^;; "Maa, maa...we get the point, Sanzo. Let's go Hakuryu!"

"Kyuu!" The white dragon nodded and transformed into a jeep. They all got in, and continued their journey to the west...

BACK ON THE DESERT ROAD...

"Ahhhhhhh...sooo hungry...where is the food god when you need him?" Goku asked no one in particular, clutching his stomach.

"Huh...how do you know the food god is a 'he'? Could be a she you know...mmm, a beautiful Goddess..." Gojyo started imagining 'things'.

O_O; "Kono ero gokiburi kappa! That's all you think about, every single day!"

"Well you're no better saru, thinking about food all day!"

"No I don't!" Gojyo didn't reply, and counted in his head -

"3, 2, 1..."

*GROWWWWWWLLL*

_ "Harahettaaaaaaaaaa! I need foooooooood!" Gojyo laughed and said,

"I can give you food, if you can guess what it is. It begins with the letter 'S'." Gojyo grinned, an evil plan forming in his head...

Goku's eyes lighted up.

"What is it? Ummm...steak?"

"No."

"Sheep?"

"No."

"Ummmmmm salmon?"

"No."

"Shrimp?"

"No."

"Sha Gojyo?"

Gojyo snorted with laughter. "Are you that hungry bakasuru?!" (But just in case he backed away a tiny bit).

"Well what is it then?" Goku said impatiently, stomach still growling like mad.

"It is...SAND!" Gojyo yelled as he grabbed a handful of sand from the floor of the jeep [hey, this IS the desert you know, and sand must have landed inside the jeep since it has no roof ^^], pinned Goku down and stuffed it down the unfortunate boy's mouth.

"*Cough cough* EWWWWW YUCK! *ptui!* You don't know where that has BEEN! What was that for anyway ero gokiburi?!" Goku yelled, spitting the sand out and trying to scrape as much sand as he could off his tongue. Gojyo laughed, and said,

"Hey, at least your teeth are cleaner! The sand can act like sandpaper and sand the germs off your teeth, and nothing is worse than getting cavities!"

"Sanzooooooo! That aka gokiburi is trying to kill me!" Goku moaned, seeking a bit of justice from the monk (who's patience was wearing paper thin).

-_-# *click*

"You don't have to worry about that, I'll kill the kappa first before that kappa can kill you. Then I'll kill you." Sanzo said calmly but dangerously, threatening both passengers in the back seat. Gojyo sweatdropped.

"Ok, ok...sheesh, can't have a bit of fun here with a corrupt monk around..." Gojyo suddenly found something hard and cold pressed against his head.

"You were saying?" Sanzo said icily.

"Erm, nothing, nothing..." Gojyo slumped back into his seat, admitting defeat. "Oh yea, Sanzo, you still haven't told us how you managed to escape from that youkai, and you didn't answer that question the saru asked about why you smoke..."

Sanzo smirked. "I smoke because it can save my life..."

"Eh? Nani? How?" Gojyo and Goku looked confused. Sanzo grunted and said no more, inhaling even more smoke to store in his lungs for another day...^_^

~Owari~

AN: Like it?! Hehe...inspiration came from remembering a lesson I had in school. We talked about the advantages and disadvantages of smoking and my friend came up with a weird advantage which was that a smoker's breath can scare away his/her enemies. My whole class was laughing when that advantage was brought up (since we could only come up with many disadvantages ^_^;). Sorry to Hakkai fans, he didn't do much in my story! Please tell me if you liked the story or not (i.e. please review!), and keep in mind that this is my FIRST ever fanfic... ^_^

P.S. No, I don't smoke. Ah well, seems like I'll die if I get caught by my enemies...^_^;

P.P.S. Please don't be encouraged to smoke, it's actually very bad (unless you're a Sanzo).